“Wait,” I blurted. “So, if you and I…if…say we decide…”
My thoughts became jumbled in my head, and conveying them wasn’t coming easily. Sexually, I was drawn to him as soon as Stefanie told me about him. His assessment of me in the bar only made matters worse. Now that he explained ‘when it comes to sex, I stand alone’, I really wanted him.
I shook my head, hoping to clear it of my thoughts. After no such luck, I looked right at him. “You wait at least thirty days before you have sex?”
He nodded. “I do.”
“No matter what?”
He nodded again. “No matter what.”
I pressed my hands to my temples and blinked repeatedly. “That’s crazy.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Is it?”
I felt bad for labeling it as crazy. It wasn’t crazy. It was absurd. “I mean. Not crazy. Just hard to imagine.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “Does the amount of men you’ve had sex with equal the amount of relationships you’ve been in?”
I spit out a laugh laced with sarcasm.
He remained stoic.
“I’m sorry.” I chuckled. “Hold on a minute.”
I struggled to contain my laughter. The question was ridiculous. If the men I’d made the mistake of fucking had dicks that somehow turned to diamonds, I could open a jewelry store.
One that might rival Tiffany’s.
Yet. I could count my relationships on three fingers.
His thirty-day rule sounded like something I should have started in high school. If I had, I would have saved myself a lot of grief, and a tremendous amount of heartache. In no time, I felt like an indecisive tramp. I was sure it was exactly what he had hoped for.
“No.” I shook my head and tried to remain straight-faced. “The numbers are a little lopsided.”
“I’m not judging you. Believe me, that’s not what this is about,” he said. “But. Do you wish they weren’t? Lopsided, that is.”
In all honesty, I did. I liked sex more than most women, that I was sure of. However, placing my sexual prowess on a shelf like a trophy wasn’t something I cared to do. At least not after a sober examination of it.
In short, I was embarrassed. I felt small. And foolish.
“I uhhm.” I shrugged, but it did little to fix how I felt. “It’s embarrassing. I wish I could change it.”
“It’s exactly why I do this. It saves me from regret, embarrassment, and it allows me to retain something as sacred as sex as being exactly what I believe it should be. Sacred.”
“Doesn’t help me much,” I said with a laugh. “As far as my past goes.”
“It’s impossible to change your past. Changing your process, and in turn, changing your future, isn’t.”
If I didn’t know better, I would guess he was offering me a thirty-day shot at a celibate relationship. Had the offer come from anyone else at any other time, I would have laughed and walked away.
Oddly, with him, I was considering it.
“Are you suggesting that I take your thirty-day course on how not to have sex?”
“It’s not a course,” he said flatly. “And, yes. That was my desire.”
I was flattered.
My gaze fell to the hardwood floor. I was certain going thirty days without having sex with him wasn’t going to be easy. If I was required to be in his presence, it would be impossible. He was far too handsome, far too intelligent, and far too sexy for me to keep my hands to myself.
I looked up.
He interlocked his hands behind his head and inadvertently flexed his biceps.
Jesus.
Yes, it was going to be impossible.
“How did this happen?” I asked.
He flexed again. “How did what happen.”
My nether regions tingled. There was no way I could make it for a month without attacking him. I crossed my legs, but it only made things worse. I uncrossed them and then wagged my knees back and forth.
“How did you pick me?” I asked. “How did you coerce me into this conversation?”
He undressed me with his eyes, taking his own sweet time to do so. Feeling vulnerable and naked, I folded my arms across my chest. It did nothing to comfort me. I crossed my legs.
Still nothing.
The eye-fucking continued.
Two can play this game, you sexy prick.
I tossed my hair and shot him a sultry look.
The corners of his mouth curled up.
I remembered I was sober, and wondered if it looked to him like I had gas. I licked my lips just to make sure he knew what I was thinking.
He cocked his head and continued to fuck me with his concrete-colored eyes. An unfamiliar tingling ran through me, and then I felt flush. I wondered at what point I would spontaneously combust.
“I picked you because you interest me,” he said, breaking the sexual tension between us. “Very few do, if that matters to you.”
“It does.” I didn’t sound very convincing. I cleared my throat and raised my voice a few octaves. “I’m flattered.”
“To clarify. You came here without coercion. Twice. This conversation, entirely, has been driven by you, Taryn.”
He was right. Or, at least he’d convinced me he was. I needed to know why he found interest in me, though.
“You said I interest you. What about me?”
“Your beauty.” He turned his palms up. “The beauty one sees satisfies the eyes. The beauty incapable of being seen satisfies the soul. You satisfy my eyes. Only time will tell if you satisfy my soul.”
Jesus. I wanted to stand up and slow clap. Instead, I took his previous advice. I stood and made an attempt to change my future.
“Thirty days?” I asked.
He nodded.
“We’ll see each other? Do things together? Hang out? Just not have sex?”
He stood. “That is correct.”
“And what is it? This thing? We’re just hanging out?”
“We’re in a relationship,” he said with a distinct certainty.
A relationship without sex was like Christmas without presents, a Bloody Mary without a celery stick, or a car without tires. It seemed counterproductive.
“But no sex?” I asked.
“Look at it this way. We’re in a relationship. No differently than if we’d met, had sex, and you thought you were madly in love with me. Now, exclude the sex, and leave the rest. That’s what we have. There will be no questions of how am I doing? or is everything to your liking? That simply complicates matters.”
“What do you mean?”
“If we were in a conventional relationship, you wouldn’t ask me how you were doing, would you? If the relationship was going to go the distance?”
“I suppose not.”
“It’s important that we proceed along those lines. It allows us to be as close to our natural selves as we can be. If you agree, we’ll spend thirty days together in as natural of a setting as we can create. Then, in thirty days we’ll decide if we should continue.”
The muscles in his biceps twitched. Again. He was torturing me, and it appeared he didn’t realize it. I shifted my gaze from his arms to his eyes.
I hope I don’t regret this.
I tossed my hair over my shoulder and smiled. “Where do I sign?”
Chapter Two Hundred Forty-Six
Marc – Day two
I took a bite of my hamburger and then glanced across the table. Seated in the restaurant’s outdoor patio, at least one of us was enjoying our time together.
It wasn’t Taryn.
She poked at her salad, separating the pecans from the array of various colored lettuce leaves. After rearranging the candy-coated nuts to the outer edge of her plate, she lowered her fork and reached for her glass of water.
Crimson ringlets of hair cascaded along the sides of her face. The red locks provided an appealing contrast to her pale skin tone. I took a moment to admire each well-placed curl, and then studied the lines of he
r face.
Her beauty wasn’t store bought. God had generously graced her with the stroke of his very own brush, paying attention to every detail I found appealing.
“What’s troubling you?” I asked.
She lowered her glass. “You make me nervous.”
“Don’t be. There’s no reason for it.”
She pierced a pecan and lifted it to her mouth. “I think it’s the thirty-day thing. I want this to work, but I feel like I’m being graded on something I can’t control.”
“You’re in complete control.”
She shook her head adamantly and then set her fork to the side. “Look at it this way. Say I’d driven race cars all my life, and I was really good at it. After moving from New York to San Diego, I was unemployed. Then, this job opened up. Race car driver wanted. I went to apply for the job, and they said, we’re going to give you a trial period, but you don’t get to drive. Just hang out in the stadium. We’ll let you know in thirty days if you’ve got the job. That’d suck, because I know I’m a great driver, and they don’t even want to see me drive.”
“I know you can drive a race car,” I said. “But, there’s much more to winning a race than simply driving.”
“Like what?”
“I’ll cast the metaphors aside. Your concern is sex. In that respect, we’ll be fine. Compatibility is my concern. At least for now.”
“How do you know we’ll be fine? You can’t know.”
“You’re a people pleaser, correct?”
Her mouth curled into a grin, and she struggled to rid herself of it. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“We’ll be fine,” I assured her. “Believe me.”
“You really make me nervous.”
The thought of her being uneasy was troubling. I wanted her to be relaxed enough to be herself. If she was worried, it wouldn’t come naturally. Making her comfortable was paramount to our relationship’s success.
I raised my index finger. “The situation makes you nervous.”
“No, it’s you.” She chuckled. “You’re intimidating.”
I cocked my head to the side and shot her a playful glare. “I am not.”
Her eyes shot wide. “How can you say that? So far, I’ve seen you walk around with that look on your face. The stern one. The only one you wear. And when you talk, you have two tones. Soft and not so soft. Neither of them have much emotion. You’re hard to figure out.”
“What have I done or said today to make you nervous?”
“Today?”
“Since we met for lunch.”
“Nothing. But you’re intimidating. And, it makes me uncomfortable when I think about you towering over me with a check list and a pen.”
I pressed my fingertips against my temples and lowered my gaze to the table. After a moment’s thought, I looked up and met her gaze.
“I think you’ll find that I’m much different than you’re expecting me to be. Our discussion at the bar and our time together last night weren’t accurate depictions of who I am. I can see where you might have found me – or our conversations – intimidating. Be yourself when we’re together, and I’ll do the same. You need to get to know me as much as I need to get to know you.”
She reached for her fork. “Okay.”
Her facial expression didn’t match her response.
I drew a breath and shook my head lightly. “Act like you would with anyone else you’ve ever been attracted to. Only imagine that your doctor said you’ve got to wait thirty days to have sex.”
She looked up. “Why would he say that?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “An infection.”
“Oh. Now I’ve got twat diseases?” She stabbed a pecan. “That’s nice.”
I let out a laugh. “Have you ever waited to have sex with someone? Dated them for a while first?”
Her face washed with embarrassment. “No. Not really.”
It wasn’t the answer I’d hoped for. “Well, just act like--”
“For what it’s worth, I like fucking,” she said. “A lot. This is just weird. The whole thing makes me nervous.”
“I like fucking,” I said flatly. “And, believe me, I don’t--”
“I can’t tell.” She cocked her head to the side and shot me a look. “I think you like fucking with women’s heads, not their va-jay-jays.”
“Excuse me?”
“Last night. You asked, does the amount of men you’ve had sex with equate to the amount of men you’ve dated? You said that to make me feel bad, even though you said that wasn’t what you were doing. You were trying to get me to agree to your little thirty-day bullshit.”
“That wasn’t exactly what I said. I said--”
“Close enough,” she said. “Am I right, or am I wrong?”
I grinned.
She wagged her finger at me. “You’re a manipulator.”
“I’m results oriented.”
“You fuck with people’s heads.”
“I simply brought something to light that you were already aware of.”
“You knew the answer, though. You didn’t ask it because you wanted to know, you asked it to get a result.”
She was right, and I let her know it. “I used it to benefit me.”
She poked at her salad for a moment, and then looked up. “I shaved my pussy this morning. It’s like a baby’s butt. Smooth and soft.”
She was trying to crawl inside my head. I had to give her credit for her effort, and found it reassuring that she’d somehow become comfortable enough to attempt such an act.
I glanced at my half-eaten hamburger. “That’s good to know.”
“Guess what else?”
I looked up and widened my eyes in mock interest. “What?”
“I fingered myself while thinking of you. My pussy was so tight I could barely get my finger in. I almost gave up.”
“But you stuck with it, right?” I asked, my face expressionless.
“I rubbed my clit, too. While I was fingering myself.”
“I would hope so. The clit’s the gateway to the soul. I can’t imagine you leaving it out of the equation.”
She exhaled heavily. “Guess what?”
“What?”
“You’re a prick.”
“I can be.”
She rested her elbows on the table and placed her chin in her hands. “I really want to bone.”
“So do I.”
Her eyes shot wide. “Really?”
I locked eyes with her and leaned closer. “Absolutely. I’d like to hike that little dress over your waist, bend you over this table, and shove you so full of dick that you gasp for your next breath. And, while you’re trying desperately to figure out what the hell is going on, I’d grip the back of your neck, pin your face down beside that pecan you dropped, and continue fucking you until you had an orgasm so earth shattering that you’d tell your grandchildren about it.”
I relaxed against the back of my chair and crossed my legs. “But I can’t.”
Her pale skin reddened. She fanned her face with her hands. “Why not?”
“Because I’ve got twenty-eight days to go.”
“Like I said. You’re a prick.”
I reached for my burger. “Right now, I’m a hungry prick.”
She huffed out a breath and picked up her fork. After a few bites of my burger, I reached for my napkin. “Still nervous?”
“Not really. Now, I’m just sexually frustrated.”
“That makes two of us.”
“You too? You get that way?”
“I’m human,” I said.
She coughed a laugh. “I have my doubts.”
Chapter Two Hundred Forty-Seven
Taryn – Day four
I set the foil in place, brushed the color on Sheri’s hair, and then folded it. As I reached for next one, I tapped her on the shoulder. “Guess what?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “What?”
“I’m seeing someone.”
“That
’s awesome. How’d you meet?”
I should have known it would be her first question. Telling her I met Marc in a bar would certainly raise eyebrows, so I decided to tell my own version of the truth.
“We met before, but I was really drunk. So, our first date was a disaster. I decided the other day that I wanted a second chance. I knew he hung out in this bar, so I went in there looking for him, hoping to reconcile. We did, and now we’re seeing each other.”
“That’s awesome. What’s he like?”
“He’s tall. Muscular. Has a few tattoos. Gray eyes. Shark eyes, that’s what I call them. And, he’s really nice. He’s got a place on the beach.”
She chuckled. “He’s muscular, nice, tattooed, and he has a place on the beach? Does he have a big dick?”
Her sister, who was in Stefanie’s chair, gasped. “Jesus, Sheri. I can’t believe you asked her that. Who asks such shit?”
“If he did, I was going to see if he had a brother,” Sheri said with a laugh.
Stefanie looked up. “She doesn’t know if he’s got a big dick. Do you, Taryn?”
I set another foil, and shot Stefanie a sideways look. When she met my gaze, I sharpened my glare and mouthed the word bitch.
As soon as I folded the foil, Sheri tilted her head back. “You haven’t seen his dick?”
I let out a sigh. “Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“He’s got rules about sex,” I said. “We’ve got to wait thirty days.”
“He hasn’t even let you see it?”
“Not yet.”
“Feel it?”
“No.”
“Hand job?”
“Nope.”
“Through the pants squeeze?”
“Not yet.”
“Any rubbage? Has he let you rub it?”
“Nope.”
“Thirty days before you can even see it? That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Marc had said we couldn’t have sex until the thirty days was up, but he didn’t say we couldn’t do other things. After Sheri’s barrage of questions, I wondered what possibilities existed in the sexual arena other than sex.
I set another foil. “Yeah. We’re on day four. Twenty-six to go.”
“Is he weird?” she asked.
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